Bulk API

The bulk API makes it possible to perform many index/delete operations in a single API call. This can greatly increase the indexing speed.

The REST API endpoint is /_bulk, and it expects the following JSON structure:

action_and_meta_data\n
optional_source\n
action_and_meta_data\n
optional_source\n
....
action_and_meta_data\n
optional_source\n

NOTE: the final line of data must end with a newline character \n.

The possible actions are index, create, delete and update. index and create expect a source on the next line, and have the same semantics as the op_type parameter to the standard index API (i.e. create will fail if a document with the same index and type exists already, whereas index will add or replace a document as necessary). delete does not expect a source on the following line, and has the same semantics as the standard delete API. update expects that the partial doc, upsert and script and its options are specified on the next line.

If you’re providing text file input to curl, you must use the --data-binary flag instead of plain -d. The latter doesn’t preserve newlines. Example:

$ cat requests
{ "index" : { "_index" : "test", "_type" : "type1", "_id" : "1" } }
{ "field1" : "value1" }
$ curl -s -XPOST localhost:9200/_bulk --data-binary "@requests"; echo
{"took":7,"items":[{"create":{"_index":"test","_type":"type1","_id":"1","_version":1}}]}

Because this format uses literal \n's as delimiters, please be sure that the JSON actions and sources are not pretty printed. Here is an example of a correct sequence of bulk commands:

{ "index" : { "_index" : "test", "_type" : "type1", "_id" : "1" } }
{ "field1" : "value1" }
{ "delete" : { "_index" : "test", "_type" : "type1", "_id" : "2" } }
{ "create" : { "_index" : "test", "_type" : "type1", "_id" : "3" } }
{ "field1" : "value3" }
{ "update" : {"_id" : "1", "_type" : "type1", "_index" : "index1"} }
{ "doc" : {"field2" : "value2"} }

In the above example doc for the update action is a partial document, that will be merged with the already stored document.

The endpoints are /_bulk, /{index}/_bulk, and {index}/{type}/_bulk. When the index or the index/type are provided, they will be used by default on bulk items that don’t provide them explicitly.

A note on the format. The idea here is to make processing of this as fast as possible. As some of the actions will be redirected to other shards on other nodes, only action_meta_data is parsed on the receiving node side.

Client libraries using this protocol should try and strive to do something similar on the client side, and reduce buffering as much as possible.

The response to a bulk action is a large JSON structure with the individual results of each action that was performed. The failure of a single action does not affect the remaining actions.

There is no "correct" number of actions to perform in a single bulk call. You should experiment with different settings to find the optimum size for your particular workload.

If using the HTTP API, make sure that the client does not send HTTP chunks, as this will slow things down.

Each bulk item can include the version value using the _version/version field. It automatically follows the behavior of the index / delete operation based on the _version mapping. It also support the version_type/_version_type (see versioning)

Each bulk item can include the routing value using the _routing/routing field. It automatically follows the behavior of the index / delete operation based on the _routing mapping.

Each bulk item can include the parent value using the _parent/parent field. It automatically follows the behavior of the index / delete operation based on the _parent / _routing mapping.

Each bulk item can include the timestamp value using the _timestamp/timestamp field. It automatically follows the behavior of the index operation based on the _timestamp mapping.

Each bulk item can include the ttl value using the _ttl/ttl field. It automatically follows the behavior of the index operation based on the _ttl mapping.

When making bulk calls, you can require a minimum number of active shards in the partition through the consistency parameter. The values allowed are one, quorum, and all. It defaults to the node level setting of action.write_consistency, which in turn defaults to quorum.

For example, in a N shards with 2 replicas index, there will have to be at least 2 active shards within the relevant partition (quorum) for the operation to succeed. In a N shards with 1 replica scenario, there will need to be a single shard active (in this case, one and quorum are the same).

The refresh parameter can be set to true in order to refresh the relevant primary and replica shards immediately after the bulk operation has occurred and make it searchable, instead of waiting for the normal refresh interval to expire. Setting it to true can trigger additional load, and may slow down indexing. Due to its costly nature, the refresh parameter is set on the bulk request level and is not supported on each individual bulk item.

When using update action _retry_on_conflict can be used as field in the action itself (not in the extra payload line), to specify how many times an update should be retried in the case of a version conflict.

The update action payload, supports the following options: doc (partial document), upsert, doc_as_upsert, script and fields. See update documentation for details on the options. Curl example with update actions:

{ "update" : {"_id" : "1", "_type" : "type1", "_index" : "index1", "_retry_on_conflict" : 3} }
{ "doc" : {"field" : "value"} }
{ "update" : { "_id" : "0", "_type" : "type1", "_index" : "index1", "_retry_on_conflict" : 3} }
{ "script" : { "inline": "ctx._source.counter += param1", "lang" : "js", "params" : {"param1" : 1}}, "upsert" : {"counter" : 1}}
{ "update" : {"_id" : "2", "_type" : "type1", "_index" : "index1", "_retry_on_conflict" : 3} }
{ "doc" : {"field" : "value"}, "doc_as_upsert" : true }
{ "update" : {"_id" : "3", "_type" : "type1", "_index" : "index1", "fields" : ["_source"]} }
{ "doc" : {"field" : "value"} }
{ "update" : {"_id" : "4", "_type" : "type1", "_index" : "index1"} }
{ "doc" : {"field" : "value"}, "fields": ["_source"]}

See URL-based access control